Calavera des Día De Los Muertos

I absolutely love dressing up, don’t you? So Halloween is a great excuse and I look forward very much to this weekend.

Make-up tutorial.

The last few years, the Mexican tradition of the “Calaveras” for the catholic holiday of All Saints on November 1st has gotten more and more famous and even had an influence on Halloween’s costumes. You probably know these colorfully decorated skulls from tattoos and art, but now it’s time for you to let the artistic ghoul out and show your bones! Here’s how:

Foundation: You’ll need some white face paint; make sure you have a clean, but moisturized face before you start, for the white paint tends to dry the skin. Apply it all the way to the edges and down to your neck and eventually your décolleté, depending on the cut of your outfit.*Pro-tip: Contour your cheekbones with some grey or black eye shadow to give your face a more realistic skull-look.

Holes: Now, the eyes and nose are most important. I’ll use some skin-crayons to draw the holes, and then some eye shadow and eyeliner pencil for the eyelids. You can use the liner for the whole thing, but remember it’s quite a big area to cover, so don’t cry later if it runs out. You can follow the lines of your bones around the eye area, or give it a more dramatic look going up a bit above the eyebrows. For the nose you can draw an upside-down heart, a spade or two “drops” on your nostrils, making sure to cover them.*Pro-tip: Instead of all black eyes, you can shade the eyes with black AND another color or just a solid color of your preference.

Lips a.k.a. teeth: There are a lot of options for this, too; you can only draw teeth on your lips, or make it a big wide smile on your cheeks, or you can even skip this step and paint your lips black or any other color – you decide.*Pro-tip: Exfoliate your lips from time to time, specially before any special makeup. It’s as easy as SOFTLY brushing them with a damp toothbrush. Moisturize with a good lip balm after, very important, if painting white for drawing your “skull teeth”.

Decoration: Now that you have the main scheme you can get creative and colorful around the eyes, on the forehead and chin. Think spooky things like spider webs and bats, but also flowers, glitter and stars – it’s a celebration after all. In my case, it was easier to remove a bit of the white cream with a cotton swab before painting with the skin-crayons and colorful eyeliner.
*Pro-tip: Add some flowers on a headband to your hair to complete the look and maybe hide your ears.

Finish: This is when you apply your mascara and/or fake lashes, not necessarily in that order. When you’re done with your make up, let it set for a little bit before fixing it with either translucent powder or a setting spray (A bit of hairspray will do too, but beware of your eyes and eyelashes!).

Extras: Depending on your outfit – and for the choice of clothing I would recommend something black and a bit festive – you can make a stronger impact if you turn all the skin that shows to skull parts as well, by painting the showing skin white and drawing bone silhouettes, like I did with my hands. Keep it simple and fix with spray. Ta-da!

Caution!

Note that this is the kind of makeup you want to do AFTER you have put on your clothes and being careful not to stain them. In fact, if your white face paint is like mine, you’ll have to be careful all the time, otherwise painting everything and everybody body else white as you move. But this look will set you apart of the zombies and vampires on Halloween. Have devilish fun and don’t forget to remove the makeup before going to bed!